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I greatly admire Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s 2005 effort to read 365 books in a year. I have not the slightest clue how she did it. She also wrote two books. Who has that time?
No matter. I read 52 books this year — one for every week — not counting a variety of research books, re-reads, novels written by my CPs, audiobooks, books I couldn’t bring myself to finish, and any book I happened to have written myself. There has been an ongoing list in the lower right corner of this blog.
I’ve always thought that a copious amount of reading is absolutely necessary to the formation of a writer. You soak up so much information about craft and story and tips and tricks when you are reading the work of another person. Read a lot is the first and best piece of writing advice to give to any aspiring author. Continued reading is also important so you get an idea of what else is out there.
Here are some stats. This year, I read (there will be some crossover):
14 chick lits
21 romances
12 contemporary romances
6 historical romances
2 time travel romances
1 futuristic romance
6 category romances
13 YA novels
35 books by authors who were new to me
41 books by authors new to me this year (Thank you, Scott Westerfeld, for making this particular statistic necessary)
14 debut novels (go, authors!) *
*Note: Debut in print or non self-published, as Bella Andre had written ebooks and Linda Berdoll had previously self-pubbed. Also not counting Gossip Girls, as have no clue how many books that chick wrote at her book packaging company.
6 novels by previously published authors breaking into a new genre
25 books that are part of a series or have a sequel (that I know of, and I’m being very loose with this. I’m totally counting the Glasses, as am I any “family” romances)
15 are the first in the series
19 series in which there are or will be more books in the series that I haven’t read
11 whose series I’m interested in following further
14 books that would not fall under the umbrella term of “women’s fiction” (and I’m counting teen chick lit as falling under that umbrella)
20 books with “paranormal,” “Science fiction,” or otherwise “couldn’t happen now, then, or at all” elements
3 I’d call horror (no matter what Dean says)
2 I’d call science fiction
2 books called “literature”
Interesting stats, I think. To me, they say a lot about my interests, my industry research, and where I might be lacking. We’ll see how these stats affect my reading choices next year.
From Vanessa Virtue’s blog:
Name Five Bad Things That Happened to You in 2005:
1. Had a very bad cold that almost prevented me from going on vacation.
2. Had my credit card stolen.
3. Found out that people who I thought were my friends were not my friends.
4. Was told by a former coworker that I’d never amount to anything.
5. Had quite a lot of nightmares.
Overall, pretty good year, I think, since most of those are not *too* bad, and one was laughable in it’s bullshittiness.
Name Five Good Things That Happened to You in 2005:
1. Moved to D.C.
2. Got a great new job.
3. Got a fabulous agent.
4. Got a dream-come-true book contract.
5. Appeared on the cover of four romance novels.
Name Five People Who Have Touched You in a Special Way in 2005:
1. Sailor Boy
2. Sailor boy’s parents, for letting me live with them while we got on our feet.
3. Deidre
4. Kerri
5. Anna
Name Five Things You Achieved in 2005:
1. (see good things list)
2. Got out of dead-end job.
3. Devoted myself to this blog on a regular basis.
4. Wrote a book.
5. Stood up to bullies.
Name Five Things You’d Like to Achieve in 2006:
1. Successful book launch.
2. Write two more books. (I’d better, since one is already contracted!)
3. Sell another book.
4. Get organized.
5. Travel.
Last year, I did not resolve to sell a book in 2005, because I had no control over that. The ball was in someone else’s court. All I could do was write and polish and submit really good books. And I did sell a book.
So why, I wonder, do I think it’s okay to resolve to sell another book in 2006? It’s still out of my control. But I’m in a different place in my career now, and I know different things about the industry. Still out of my control, but much closer to it than this time last year.
What is your new year’s resolution/what would you like from 2006?
Didn’t we cover this above? I suppose it would be to be a more productive, and better human being than I was in the previous year. There; that should cover it.
So sometimes I’m writing away on this blog, and I forget that it really is visible to anyone who wants to see it. And the people who comment? Occasionally I grasp the totally wrong end of the stick when it comes to identifying them.
For instance, yesterday, and for many days before that, I was under the mistaken impression that regular comment-poster “Charlene” was a YA and inspirational romance writing friend. Apparently, Charlene is actually Charlene Teglia, Ellora’s Cave author and current RT Nominee for best Erotica of 2005. Hee hee. Oops. We welcome all Charlenes here on Diana’s Diversions, and would like to make it known that if we ever made any jokes that Ms. Teglia did not get, it’s because we thought she was someone else.
In another instance, Sailor Boy is chatting with me yesterday as I was stirring the spaghetti sauce on the stove, and mentions that his friend Adam is now commenting on my blog. “Wait, a second,” I say, almost tipping over the pot. “‘Adam’ is Adam?” Eloquence while cooking is not my forte. So, um, hi, Adam. Oops.
Now I’m curious as to who else I have been misidentifying on this thing. Who are you people? Do I know you?  Some of you post, and are kind enough to say things like, “Your cousin, Maggie” so I don’t get this idea in my head that there’s this other Maggie wandering around my blog willy nilly, and that’s great. Other times, weeks go by, and I don’t have a clue that the Adam I’ve been corresponding with blogly is the same one whose girlfriend I had drinks with last night.
I feel like such a space cadet. Please tell me this has happened to someone else on blog or email.
From a private email:
“I hate synopses. I can’t wait until I’m published and don’t have to write them anymore.”
Um, no. Nice try, though. And while I am sure there are some writers out there who do not write synopses and sell their books anyway (please hold off on sending such reports; I know they are out there and bully for them) by making either blind contracts or selling off chapters sans synop, this is not always the case, and from what I understand, this is not even USUALLY the case.
Often, being published means that your synopsis is even more important, for instead of merely trying to get an editor to read the manuscript on the basis of your synopsis, you’re trying to get them to lay down money for a manuscript you haven’t even written because the synopsis makes it sound cool. In some contracts, there’s a whole chunk of money reserved until you turn in your synopsis or outline or what have you. At many houses, it’s the synopsis, and not the manuscript, that is given to the art and marketing departments. It’s the synopsis that tells the PR person what to put in the press release, the flap copy writer what to put in the blurb, etc. etc. It’s the synopsis that helps the marketing department decide how to present your book to the public. It’s kinda important.
So it’s not necessarily going anywhere after you sell your book, and it’s not one of those things you only have to do if you’re unpublished, and it is a valuable bit of craft to hone.
Is it important as writing a kickass book? Hell to the no. But picture this: You write a kickass book and a deplorable synopsis, which somehow does not prevent the editor from reading and falling in love with your kickass book. She takes it to the acquisitions meeting with a recommendation to buy. Her boss, her boss’s boss, and the marketing department don’t have time to read all seventy of the books the editors have brought to the table, so they just read the synopses. Yours is deplorable. They pass on your kickass book. Your editor is crushed and decides she’s burned out, can’t call ‘em anymore, and she should pack up, move to Maine, and open an alpaca farm. Now not only is your book not going to be published, but your deplorable synopsis is responsible for ruining the poor editor’s career and reducing her to a life of llama shearing.
Do you really want that on your conscience?
I didn’t think so.
Miss Snark is clearly in the Christmas spirit, as she has offered to read and critique 106 synopses with her “crapometer.” I’ve been reading — okay, no, not reading, I don’t have the fortitude for that, but skimming pargraphs here and there — the posted works and am once again struck by how very difficult it must be for an agent or editor or acquisitions department to evaluate a story based on the crapola people turn in and call synopses.
Over the years, I have heard an enormous amount of whingeing over the harmless synopsis; I have heard it called the “sucknopsis”; I have heard the annoying refrain, “If I could tell it in five pages, I would”; and I’ve read dozens upon dozens of really, really terrible ones. I’ve read them every year in the Golden Heart; I read dozens in the process of coordinating the Stiletto Contest in 2004. I don’t think there’s necessarily any correlation between the quality of the writing and the quality of the synopsis. Some of the best writers I know can’t craft a decent synopsis to save their lives.
Personally, I love synopses. I love being forced to boil the essence of my story down to a few pages. It helps me concentrate on what I’m really trying to say, and also helps me see which scenes do not serve the story. Usually, I find that if they don’t even rate a mention in the synopsis (even in the “she realizes BLANK” manner, and that’s the scene where she realizes it), they are probbaly pointless to the story as a whole, and should be cut. I write my synopsis before I write the book, and it is probably the single most effective tool for crystallizing my thoughts about the story before diving in.
A few years ago, I attended a workshop on writing synopses given by Kathy Carmichael, and it revolutionized my writing. It began with a simple statement by Jeanie London: A synopsis is a sales tool. Yes, you should be telling the story and making sure, as agent Lucienne Diver says, to let the reader know if aliens land in chapter 14, but, more importantly, you should be doing it in a way that has the same wit and verve as the actual book does. You should avoid the details that are on the fence as far as marketability goes and hit hard the ones that scream bestseller. You should cut out anything that sounds remotely boring. You should focus on the plot arc, the overview, mentioning incidents only as they directly effect the main result of your story and your characters’ growth patterns. You hsould really read Kathy Carmichael’s articles on the subject.
In many synopses and query letters and even pitches that i’ve heard in group setting, critiqued, or otherwise come into contact with in my four years of writing books, the absolute number one problem I’ve seen is writers who are not aware of what their story is about. I’ve been at group pitching sessions where the agent virtually begs the author to get to the point as the author laboriously details every facet of minor characters’ backstories and hair color and favorite flavor of ice cream. Look, no one cares what your heroine’s hair color is unless she’s a red head and the serial killer is stalking red heads like that guy in that episode of The X-Files did. Otherwise, we don’t care. Really, we don’t. And don’t spend half of your synopsis detailing what happens BEFORE the story starts. Just as you don’t want to bog us down in backstory in the opening chapters of the book, you don’t want to bog us down in your synopsis either. It’s enough to say, “after a failed childhood romance, hero and heroine meet up again under such-and-such circumstances” or “because her father beat her mother, the heroine has never been able to trust a man” or whatever. A phrase or two that gets the point across. No details, and only as much backstory as is absolutely essential to understanding whatevre issue the character has.
Which leads me to my next point. The second most common problem I see in synopses is a predilection for telling us exactly what happens in every scene of the book. He goes here, she takes a drink, he cooks some eggs, she braids her hair. OMG! Stop it! We don’t care, we don’t care we DON’T CARE! If you are having problems getting your synopsis down to the requisite number of pages, if you are one of the writers mentioned above who believe that your story wasn’t “meant” to be told in 5 pages, then this is probably what you are doing. Rather than focusing on the “tent pole” plot points, the “turning points” or whatever else you call them, you are meandering. Pu the keyboard down; step away from the story.
Step WAY away. Far enough so that if your story is one of those posters that are made up of a billion little snapshots, you’re far enough away to see the overall pattern (Yoda’s face or whatever). Your synopsis is the big picture. That’s all it is. Sometimes I advocate letting your critique partner start eht synopsis for you. Seriously. Have a reader tell you what your book is about. Chances are, he or she will hit on the high points that you are too close to see. Have her sit down and tell you about the book as if she’s trying to get you to read it yourself. You will see it through totally new eyes, I promise. Once you’ve got that list, you can see how easy it is to leave out bits of details that you think are so very, very important and concentrate on the high bits. (You might have to add some stuff they left out, but you will be amazed to see how much they left out that you don’t really need in the synopsis.)
Don’t cry if minor characters never get mentioned. Don’t cry if they don’t get named, either. Names should only be used if the character is mentioned enough that it gets tiresome to say “Sarah’s friend’s instructor’s dog-walker” eight times. Which leads me to my next point:
When you introduce a character, give them a tag. Sarah is not just Sarah. She’s Sarah, the plucky hypnotherapist, or the heroine’s twice-divorced sister, or the busy body secretary, or SOMETHING. When you read, what your brain does is place each character in a category: important, mildly interesting, red shirt; then if the character is named, assign the sign of that name to the signifier of the character category. You will notice that this is done on book flap copy everywhere. In my synopsis for Secret Society Girl, I call my heroine “college junior Amy Haskel” and the writer of my book flap copy clarified it further and called her “elite Eli University junior Amy Haskel.” We like knowing who we are dealing with upfront. Other character tags I used included “polished rich bitch Clarissa” and “Afrocentric lesbian activist Demetria.” The flap copy writer funnelled many of these descriptions straight into the blurb on the cover of my book. We need to know a little about who these characters are if we expect the reader to care at all.
Events in the synopsis must be connected. It’s not enough to say, “And then so-and-so went into batttle, and then she was killed. And then they all had tea.” We need to see how so-and-so’s death effects the other characters. Otherwise, it’s not really important that he dies, is it? (Cough, cough, Peter Jackson). Don’t let the things that happen read like a laundry list. They must all be funneling towards the main point, the character growth, the plot arc, SOMETHING. If not, then they don’t belong in the synopsis.
The other complaint people make about synopses is that you’re supposed to showcase your voice in them, but how can you tell the whole story in five pages AND put your voice into it? I don’t think you can, completely, but you can give the reader a good taste. Go read a bunch of cover blurbs. Notice how the serious, emotional books have blurbs to match, while the funny books make jokes in their blurbs? That’s just an example. For a great example, read Miss Snark’s comments on Crapometer entry #23. The chick lit author describes a minor character as a “bunny-boiling ex-girlfriend.” She could have said “crazed stalker” or “obsessive ex with a borderline personality disorder” but she went for the funny and got her point — and her voice — across with one pair of hyphenates. Since my character tends to use a lot of “lists” to describe her options or her reasoning, I used a few “lists” in my synopsis.
I highly recommend reading the crapometer posts. Just reading the mistakes and successes other people made will help you see how you can improve your own work. Number 23 is an example of an excellent synopsis, #22 is an example of why the characters need to be connected to both tags and to the events of the story, #15 is fine (though I know for a fact that this author is insisting up, down, and backwards that her story is not a paranormal, despite the inclusion of leprechauns and wish-fulfillment — note to writers, agent Lucienne Diver ALSO recommends not pretending you are writing in a genre you’re not; as she says, if there are space ships and ray guns, don’t tell me it’s not SF”), #14 (and others) explains why you should do a little research into the industry before saying shit like “fictional novel”, #11 is an excellent example of the sort of play-by-play details to leave OUT of the synopsis, and #1 shows someone who doesn’t know what her story is really about OR what details can be left out. I will be following the other 80 or so posts with much interest.
And please don’t hate the synopsis. It loves you.
1. What is your favorite Christmas carol? One? Are you kidding? Um probably “We Three Kings” though “Carol of the Bells” is great too.
2. What is your favorite fun Christmas song? They’re ALL fun! Okay, fine. “Grandma Got Run OVer By A Reindeer”has a special place in my heart. Also “Christmas Tree Hung With Tears” though I don’t know if it’s “fun”. But it’s not traditional, that’s for sure. Think “Miss Havisham’s fave carol.”
3. Who’s your favorite reindeer? Vixen, natch. Also Blitzen.
4. What’s your favorite Christmas food? Poppyseed roll, but only the kind made by the baker who retired from Publix and ruined my holiday for all time.
5. What’s your favorite “day” of Christmas? Probably five golden rings, though there’s just something about that pear tree…
6. What’s your favorite Christmas special? A Christmas Story. Does that count? It was made for TV…
7. What is your favorite Christmas movie? Favorite? Forget it. I narrowed down my Xmas carols, but this I will not do. The Ref? I’m going to hell. I also really like Santa Claus, the Movie. And Holiday Inn. And any version of A Christmas Carol. I don’t care which one it is. I’ll take ‘em all. Including Scrooged.
8. Do you prefer Frosty or Rudolph? Are we talking claymation or song versions? I’m thinking Rudolph. Frosty is too tragic. Plus, he’s made of snow. Snow and I are enjoying an uneasy truce. (Note to self: do not make the too-easy “Cold War” pun.)
9. What’s your least favorite Christmas movie? Well, I don’t think I’ve seen most of the modern ones (Like the Ben Affleck one or anything) but I’m going to have to go with White Christmas here.
10. Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Day of course, who does the other one? That’s crazy.
11. Where’s your favorite place to celebrate Christmas? Well, “home” is the obvious answer, but I really had a blast at the Brown Kiwi in Auckland in 2003. Sailor Boy and I had just checked in on Xmas Eve, and there was a huge sign at the desk that said, sign up for our Xmas barbecue for $10. So we did, thinking tha it would be a couple of sausage rolls and gatorade, but it was better than nothing, and if it sucked, we were only out seven (US) dollars. But it was the most incredible feast. There was ham and chickens and yams and kumara and casseroles and fruit salad and cherries and veggies and salads and this traditional Kiwi dessert called Pavlova which is this cake/meringue, fruit, whipped cream concoction, and crates and crates of methode traditional (NZ champagne, which is frickin’ phenomenal). We all sat out on these picnic tables under umbrellas and it was a whole bunch of Kiwis from the very cute and artsy (read: gay) neighborhood where the hostel was, and a bunch of young adults from all over the world. Christmas dinner with Israelis and Spaniards and Brazilians and Americans and Australians and Kiwis and English and Irish and Germans and everything else. And we talked abotu how we do Christmas “back home.” And we talked about the world, and Peace On Earth, and Goodwill Towards Men, and all that stuff that you’d think Jesus would want you to talk about on his birthday. And I don’t think anyone there was religious, or at least they weren’t religious in the Christian persuasion, but I think the point was made anyway. I want every Christmas to be like that. No presents. Just a lot of meringue and chicken and champagne and really good conversations about how people all over the world like to have feasts and think about the goodness in humanity’s heart. The Brown Kiwi people are really, really Good People.
12. What’s your favorite Christmas memory? Ah, that’s private. 
Dude, is it me, or is Romancing the Blog gone? I haven’t been able to visit in days.
So I recently received an email from a college aquaintance that made my mouth drop. Apparently, her brother has fallen in love with a wonderful woman, and they want to get married. How lovely. Mazel Tov! One problem. He’s half Mexican-American and she’s from a conservative Korean-American family and her folks are flipping out. So sis is canvassing to find other cases in which a Korean-American married someone of another ethnicity despite parent’s wishes and “everything turned out fine.”
In my point of view, the point where someone uses “lesser breed” to refer to another human being (as this girl’s parents apparently did) happens to be the exact same point where I stop caring about their opinion on who marries whom.
The fact that the boy in question “has never been to Mexico except to go snorkeling in Cozumel, thinks Cesar Chavez is a silent film star, and speaks not one word of Spanish” really doesn’t have much bearing on the issue. He could visit Mexico on a monthly basis, immerse himself completely in Mexican culture, teach graduate level courses on Mexican nationalism, and speak Spanish, Nuahatl, and Yucatec and if he’s a nice guy who makes a good living and is nice to their daughter, then they can just shut up about what culture he comes from and whether or not he appreciates it.
Meanwhile if anyone knows a Korean-American who married outside of his or her ethnicity despite parent’s wishes and it has all turned out okay, shoot ‘em my way.
Confidential to M.A.E.: Congratulations on your promotion!
Exciting news: my galleys came yesterday! Woo hoo!
Now, if you are the reader of this blog who answers to the name Kerri Buckley, you’re going to tell me that they aren’t galleys, because you work for a publisher that has all sorts of complex names for things that have numbers and acronyms for “page proofs” and weird bits of industry-jargon shorthand attached, and that’s fine. The rest of us will say that they are galleys and here’s why:
1. They look like the actual pages of the book, printed within a regular sheet of paper.
2. They are laid out like an actual page of the book.
3. They have the pretty font just like the actual pages of the book.
4. They have my name at the top of every left hand page, just like the actual pages of the book.
5. They have the title at the top of every right hand page, just like the actual pages of the book.
6. They have the page numbers in the upper outside corners, just like the actual pages of the book.
7. They have blank pages, just like the actual pages of the book.
In short, it looks like the actual book, and I’m going to go ahead and call it a galley, becuase it looks and quacks like one.
So, yay, my galleys came today! Woo hoo!
Yes, there were a few tears. Quoth Sailor Boy, “Um is this just hitting you now?” By “this,” he meant “that it was a real book.”
He asked me this because I kept waving the pages in his face, being all teary-eyed, and whispering, “It’s a real book! It’s a real book!”
Quoth Sailor Boy, “You saw the sample. You knew this would be what it looked like.”
Wow, so not the point. It’s a real book. Or it will be soon.
Let’s get ready to ruuuummmmmmbllle.
Rant warning full in place, y’all. I don’t want to hear it.
Rant #1: Word Count
So over at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books, as well as elsewhere on the blogsophere, people are whingeing about the new word counts for Harlequin category novels. The main argument seems to be that they’ll be getting “less story” for their money. Then, in the comments section, they really go to town, accusing Harlequin of everything from trying to bilk their authors out of more money (as if they are being paid per word now! Ha! If so, the Bombshell and Super authors would be rolling in the money that Presents authors make every time they type “tycoon”).
It starts to get utterly ridiculous towards the end, as authors who clearly haven’t received word about the new guidelines and applicable lines (hint: all category) start arguing about whether or not their single title Harlequin Enterprises releases are “too long.” Luna is not on the list. They are discussing category books, where word count is paramount.
Poor Susan Gable, in an attempt to stem the tide of madness sweeping the blogosphere, posts some information she gleaned from her editor:
In the effort of full disclosure, I have now heard from my editor with
clarification. I’m seeking more clarification.
Super authors were notified that in essence, this is a change in HOW we count words. Instead of using pages at 250 wpp method, we’re moving to using computer word count. That would mean, for example, that my last Superromance, which was 340 ms pages (85K on the dot by the old method) and was 71K-ish by Word computer word count, is just what they’re looking for. Actually, if we go by the
computer word count, I was actually on the “low” side of new 70-75K word
count. Darn!
Did that stop it? No. So I’m considering it my civic duty to make sure this info gets out again. Because people seem pathologically incapable of understanding word count, which to me is a relatively simple concept.
Back in the day, when all we had were typewriters, there was no “word count” feature. So the industry came up with a standard. Typewriter font, double spaced, held on average over a novel length, 250 words per page. They knew on the basis of the thousands and thousands of books they published, how many pages of finished novel a give number of typewritten pages made. That was how much novel they wanted. So they based their word count on that estimate. And that’s what it is, an ESTIMATE. Soemtimes wildly inaccurate one if you happen to be a particularly “dense” writer, who uses long description filled paragraphs, or if you happen to be a particularly dialogue heavy writer who used a lot of white space. But it was an average, and it was good enough to become and industry standard.
Now, I see you say, we do not use typewriters anymore. So why are some publishers still adhering to that old standard? Well, I’ll tell you, Because computer word count often — not always, but sometimes — sucks. It does not account for the fact that your entire novel is written in haiku, with enough white space to fill in for the Alaskan tundra in January. Some of the programs count every punctuation mark as a separate word, rather than as a separate character. “Well, that’s dumb,” would be nine words instead of three. Multiply that by 10,000 and you can see what the problem with accuracy is. Some of the programs add in all the words in your heading. If your manuscript is entitled CONFESSIONS OF A SECRET SOCIETY GIRL and you have your last name and page number in your heading, congratulations, you just added about 3,000 words to your book. Do you see how this can get messy? So when Candy on Smart Bitches asks why can’t they get with the program, the reason is that they think their method is more accurate and more likely to turn up a product built to their specifications. They can’t police your word processing programs, or how often you hit your “Enter” key. They can police the number of pages they get in the mail.
In most cases — most, not all, but most — this doesn’t matter one little bit. Editors can see a huge thick stack of double spaced pages and figure out that it’s enough for a book. But in some cases, such as the case of Harlequin category novels, where every single book in a given line have the same number of pages (and that, by the way, is so they know that the same number of books fit in the box shipped out to stores, every author, every month), it’s kind of tough to tell if the book is 3,000 words over just by looking at the stack of paper. And there is a huge, huge difference between figuring things according to computer word count, which does not take into account white space, and figuring things by the other method.
And to illustrate it, though I do not write for Harlequin, I would like to show you the difference. My first novel is 75,000 words according to the Word Count feature of Microsoft Word. This is how Bantam Dell figures it. However, my manuscript, in Courier 12, is 88,500 words. That’s a huge freaking difference, folks. Now, this didn’t surprise anyone at my publisher’s because we each knew how they were figuring the word count beforehand. It’s only a problem for you if you are submitting to both houses that figure it oe way and houses that figure it another. And it’s REALLY only a problem if you are submitting to houses like Harlequin cateogry houses, who have strict requirement for word count. But Harlequin explained how they wanted it, and how they wanted it figured, right there on their web page. If you were following their submission guidelines (and anyone submitting anywhere should be folowing submission guidelines) you know this in advance, you figure out your wordcount according to the way the publisher counts it,a nd you include it in the publisher and editor-specific query letter that you have so loveingly and carefull crafted to the publisher’s specifications.
I cannot tell you why this seems so hard for people to understand. The word count of my book does not shift 13000 words because I change fonts, people. The method of counting does. Do not get riled up. It’s the same as saying that something is a pound here and a .45 kilos in Europe. It’s not both 1 and .45, it’s a location and conversion thing. They are using a different system of measurement. Does that make it easier to understand? So my book is 75,000 words, or 88.5k Courier12 count. Itls like saying you ran 5k or 3.3 miles.
But this is all moot because apparently Harlequin is switching over. So the word count isn’t changing, no more than I cut 13,000 words out of my book. It’s the same exact story, same exact word count, figured a different way. So… no more complaining.
(Honestly, my guess is that these so-called “long authors” who are now being told to write shorter so their stuff doesn’t bleed into the margins WERE using computer word count already, so they were actually turning in 88k books into SIM, which wanted 75k stories. That why all the authors you see online are being told by their editors that “they are fine” — because they were adhering to the correct conversion method already.)
Rant #2: Scam Agents
I read this post recently on Miss Snark’s blog. It’s regarding a scam agency listing its business “successes”:
We are bigger than a small agency and smaller than a large agency. We have about
15 people total and as of 2nd quarter, 2005 we have over 60 active conversations
on going with buyers and 3 option agreements in negotiations in our screenplay
division. We just sold our 4th book deal (to a publisher in England) and we are
confident of more success later this year. (A 5th deal is being signed as we
speak). We market to the larger and medium sized publishers and producers. We
have had 5 successes now in the last 2 years (fyi: most agencies only have 1 or
2 deals every couple of years, if that.).
Miss Snark says, “Bullshit,” and I concur. They sold five books in two years? Off the top of my head, without even going to Publisher’s Lunch, I can think of about 25 books that my agent and her associates sold this year. (Granted, they’ve been having a banner year, but I’m probably forgetting a few, and so even if I’m only forgetting five, that’s ten deals a piece this year alone.) So their claim about agents only making one or two deals every few years is such phenomenal bullshit that I don’t even know where to go with that.
And the problem is, people believe it. They believe it the way that they believe that bit about paying 8 thousand bucks to an agent for “processing,” that they believe you need to pay to be published, that they believe, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary for anyone who cares to even subscribe to the free edition of Pub Lunch, that no one will sign new writers or publish them (at least three of the book deals my agent and her associates made this year were by people who had never ever ever, not once, published a book before). They believe it even though it’s written all over creation that an agent should be making 15% of what you do, and 15% of one or two books a year every few years would never ever be enough to support yourself on, unless your client is named James Patterson, who, you’ll note, writes a hell of lost more than two books every few years. If this one deal you are making is for a million dollars, then yeah, okay, you’re fine. But the million dollar deal writers are few and far between, so “most agencies” are not representing them. “Most agencies” are representing “most writers” and “most writers” are not the millionaires.
I get so angry when I read crap like this and know that people are buying it. Like, really really, teeth-grindingly, red-faced, wanna-hit-something angry. And I wonder where these people are that believe this. And I wonder why they haven’t stumbled across Preditors and Editors, or Writer Beware, or any other professional organization, or any of the billion litblogs that would reveal how very very wrong any of these things are. Or Publisher’s Lunch, where they can look up the deals if they want and keep a running tally and track agency fees in their head.
Or is it that they’d rather be fooled? Willful ignorance, as I postulated before?
Okay, rant over. As you were. But really, I swear, if I run into you scam agents somewhere, I’m going to deck you.
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